Seven Year Breath
by simplyprologue
Summary: Years later, they both drift into the same working class town. She gets a job as a waitress, he as a construction worker. Sometimes he sees her after shift. They see, and say nothing. Time has taught them to keep their mouths shut. (Modern AU, one-shot.)


**A/N: **I'm not entirely sure where this one came from. I guess the graphic came first, and the general premise. Waitressing just sounded like something Sansa would be good at, inherently, and I like the aesthetic of the two of them sitting in a diner booth on a dreary early winter day. the town in the fic is based on my hometown, which is a tiny New Jersey commuter town along the Northeast Corridor. The diner does exist, as does the construction site. (Bless you if you can figure out which town it is.)

Thank you to everyone waiting patiently for TMitT to update. It _is _coming. I will never abandon it.

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She took the first train up the Northeast Corridor, landed in some tiny New Jersey commuter town. The diner had been within walking distance, across the highway from a shopping center that was being put up. It was a small place, with warm red walls and white-speckled linoleum tables and floors, grey leather booths. Pastries and cookies in a glass case, an out-of-date cash register. Paper placemats, dented silverware. But nice enough, tidy.

The owner had only asked for her driver's license.

_Catelyn Snow._

Sometimes the owner's wife called her _Catie_, and slipped her an extra twenty with her pay, sweetly urging her to get a pedicure, how she worked so hard, how her feet must be sore. The owner's wife never touched her, except to grasp her hand. Sansa wondered if she had a way of knowing; the way the woman treated her never made her felt like she was on display. The brown hair dye washed out, and one of her coworkers complimented her on her hair. But still, she knew, her wrists were thin, the skin under her eyes stamped with exhaustion. And her feet _hurt_.

Survival, yes, but at least not at any cost.

But it _was_ easy enough, at least, to put to use the etiquette and manners she had been raised to worship, to laugh and be charming and harmless by turns, and perceptive and on-guard under her patina of warmth, the draw of an easy smile.

He started coming in a few months later. Sansa laughed, in a way, but Sandor Clegane never said anything. He worked on the construction site, and would come after his shift and then some had ended, after most of the other men had headed home or to the bar, and would sit. And read, mostly, fingering the ten month chip from what Sansa guessed was the AA chapter that was run out of the local Presbyterian Church. He was clean-shaven now, skin a better color, hair trim, clothes well-kept. Quiet, less angry. Sometimes Sansa thought of how she prayed for him. Sometimes they exchanged nods; mostly they just avoided each other. It was courtesy, Sansa thought, that kept him from sitting in her section. He didn't want to tip her hand. It only made her want to talk to him more.

Six years. Closer to seven, if she did the unforgiving math.

When a year had passed from after she ran away from Peter, when she could finally believe that maybe she wouldn't be found, she finally sat at his booth with him. The sticker on his hardhat said a name that wasn't his own. After a year of keeping her head down, she looked up.

"They said you were dead," she said softly, stacking sugar packets into the holder, quiet fingers barely making any noise.

He laughed in a way that suggested he had not, in a while. "I could say the same to you."

Sansa smiled. It was an accomplishment. He seemed to understand. "The other men, sometimes they stop in before their shift, and we have coffee and a pastry waiting for them. I know how you take your coffee."

"Watching me, girl?" The man who used to be known as the Hound flashed briefly to the surface. It was almost a thrill; he smiled, not lasciviously. She almost felt like Sansa, had, for a while. She wondered if he was ever interested in feeling like Sandor Clegane.

She smiled, in a way that was kind but playfully aloof. (She flirted, with the men here, who didn't have wandering hands, and was treated as kin by the ones who said they had daughters her age at home. And he watched her, while she did.) "A good waitress pays attention to these things." She swung her feet up onto the booth; they hurt, but she didn't complain. Her hands subconsciously felt out for her tips, the bills and coins carefully tucked into her apron. "It's just like how I know that like Steven King, and Tolkien. You'll read Koonz but won't buy his books, you think he's exploitative, but sometimes you think you need that, to remind you. You read Bukowski when you think you're moving forward. You should read Salinger, even though you'd think Holden Caulfield is whiny. I like _Nine Stories_."

_Fuck dammit_, Sansa thought as he shuttered his face, shifting _The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon _under his things. "But, um…" She bit her lip. "You can tell me to shut up." _Peter did, enough, towards the end. And you know Jeffrey always would. God, you moron, this is what made Peter know you were on to him. Keep your thoughts to yourself. _

The Hound looked down at his hands where they rested on his lap for a long moment.

"Are you safe here?" he finally asked, voice rasping and low. He looked at her differently, now. Less guarded, but as if he did it by force. "Happy?"

Sansa didn't know how to answer for a few long seconds; looking down as well, she pushed a greasy lock of auburn hair behind her ear. "Yes," she answered. "I am," she added, surer. Slowly, she looked up, and saw him looking at her like he had been all year.

"Me too." He smiled, a bit. His burns had gotten better, Sansa noticed. Maybe he had finally gotten a proper doctor to look at them; he no longer wore them as a badge of… _the Hound is dead_.

(The train was close; they both could run if they needed to. Rent wasn't too bad, for Jersey. The work was stable. The people had the sense or were nice enough not pry, as long as you worked hard enough. Besides, Sansa knew the owner of the diner was an ex-con, and knew well-enough to not ask any questions.)

She smiled back, and felt like Sansa, even if her name tag read _Catelyn_. Breath a bit shaky, she nodded, and stood, smoothing the wrinkles out of her uniform. Hesitated, resting the flats of her hands against the tabletop.

He looked up at her expectantly.

"It's a cold winter, here. You really should see me about coffee." It was already dark outside, the sun falling low by 4:30. Soon it would snow and they wouldn't be able to work at all. Sansa wondered if she'd see him, then, if he'd come in for lunch or breakfast, if she would learn what he read when the nights were long and the urge to drink was high. Or if he'd find work elsewhere. The hardware store across the way was always hiring. She'd have to remember to tell him that, if it came to it, even though they could survive without each other.

"I will," he promised her.

Sansa smiled again, and then turned to walk away, the soles of her scuffed sneakers not making a sound against the checkered floor.

"Sa-_Catelyn_."

She turned back; the look on his face was one almost like the one that had been on it seven years ago, when he had come to her, covered in blood and slurring his words. Almost, and then miles far from it.

"I'm sorry," he eventually got out, voice tightened with something akin to fear. He pulled out the ten month chip from his pocket with fumbling fingers, almost as an afterthought. Her brow creased in confusion for a moment, before realizing. "It's one of the twelve steps," they said together.

_I forgive you_, Sansa almost said, without meaning it. Did she? She felt for the money in her apron again, all that she had left in the world. Nothing of her family, or her home, or the girl she once had been. And he…

She nodded to him instead, like she had done all year. He understood. Little steps. They all needed little steps, had taken baby ones all year, towards each other. Kept each other's secrets, from the start.

(_Seven years_, Sansa thought. It's a long breath to hold. But he had told her his secret first.)

They had time, now.

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**Thanks for reading!**


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